Restrooms

People who know me know I don't typically subject myself to filth on any level. I keep a relatively clean home, a relatively clean car, and a relatively clean demeanor. Which is why I hate visiting most restrooms.

Whatever happened to restrooms being a room of rest? Shouldn't each visit to a restroom be relaxing, stress-free, and comfortable? If I'm in a state of rest, I have to be positioned in a means where all three of those descriptors depict my current condition. The presence of filth tends to serve as a rest blockade.

My second crap job out of college was working in a lumber yard, and since I didn't know jack squat about lumber other than it floats and burns (c'mon, people, I was out of college with an English degree and just needed a job), I opted to daily clean the two poor excuses for restrooms in the warehouse that otherwise probably wouldn't have ever seen a bottle of Comet in its life span. Now, I didn't daily clean the restrooms because I have some sort of restroom-cleaning fetish; rather, I couldn't stand knowing that there was bound to be a day where I, while on the clock, would need a true closed-door restroom session while also knowing there would be a very strong likelihood that both restrooms would be coated with grime, mold, urine, and tobacco spit, unless someone intervened beforehand. So, there stood I everyday with a sponge, a brush, and a bottle of chemicals. It also served as a convenient escape from having to answer inquiries about what size of galvanized nails someone should buy.

And while we're on the topic of restroom aesthetics and the general environment therein, why do restrooms have to be so darn loud? The echoic reverb bouncing off those porcelain commodes and ceramic tiles is unsettling. Shouldn't restrooms be engineered to yield the least amount of noise of any other room? But, no, rather than suppress the usual sound waves commencing from stalls, the room amplifies them for the adjacent world to hear. That's comforting. And by "comforting" I mean quite contrary to its "restroom" name.

I love how Britons cut to the chase and call it a toilet. "I need to go to the toilet." There's no beating around the bush there. To us Americans that somehow comes off as a bit crass and unrefined, as if we know what's in there but would daintily prefer to call it something prettier and much more polite. But Britons understand that acknowledging the room encasing the commode isn't what's important. There's one goal of everyone going into the restroom and it's finding that toilet, so why call it anything else? It is what it is. Thankfully they stop just short of calling it by its bodily purpose.

You know, the pooproom.